TAIPEI (Jan 29) - The decomposing remains of a 66-ton sperm whale exploded on
a busy Taiwan street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs
and stopping traffic for hours, local newspapers said.
The 56-foot dead whale had been on a truck headed for an autopsy at a
university earlier this week, when gases from internal decay caused its
entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.
The whale had died after it was beached on the southwestern coast of
the island.
01/29/04 07:09 ET
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On Wednesday, January 28, 2004, the U.S. Senate amended and passed H.R.
3108, The Pension Funding Equity Act, by a vote of 86 - 9. As passed by the
Senate, the bill would:
* temporarily replace the discontinued 30-year Treasury bond interest
rate used to calculate contribution levels of defined benefit plans with a rate
based on a composite of long-term corporate bonds; this new rate would be
used in 2004 and 2005 but will not apply to lump sum distributions, which will
use the 30-year Treasury rate;
* give airlines and steel companies relief from the Deficit
ReductionContribution (DRC) payments currently required if the funded level of their
defined benefit plans generally falls below 80%; the amount of the relief would be
80% in 2004 and 60% in 2005 and to be eligible for this relief, a plan would
have to have been considered fully-funded in 2000;
* give multi-employer pension plans 2 years of funding relief, however,
no airline plan falls into this category.
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) failed in an attempt to add an amendment to
restore the terminated defined benefit plan of the US Airways pilots. No roll
call vote was taken on the Specter amendment.
H.R. 3108 must now go to a conference committee between the House and the
Senate to reconcile the differences between the two versions of the bill.
(The House adopted its version of H.R. 3108 on October 8, 2003.) ALPA will
continue to work full-time to ensure that meaningful DRC relief is included in the
final agreement. The following are the Senators who voted against the bill:
Chafee (R-RI)
Ensign (R-NV)
Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
Nickles (R-OK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Thomas (R-WY)
==========================================================
Jonah and the Whale
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a
human because even though they were a very large mammal their throat was very
small. The little girl stated Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
The teacher reiterated a whale could not swallow a human; it was
impossible.
The little girl said, "When I get to Paradise, I will ask Jonah."
The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."
====================================================
History of My Name
An Indian boy goes to his mother one day with a puzzled look on his face.
"Say, Mom, why is my bigger brother named Soaring Eagle?"
She told him, "Because your father stepped outside when he was born
and saw a soaring eagle ."
Then he asked, "Why is my sister named Cornflower?"
She replied, "Well, your father and I were in a cornfield when we she
was born and we couldn't get to a hospital."
"And why is my other sister called Moon child?"
The mother said, "We were watching the moon in the hospital, and she
was born."
The Mom paused and then asked her son, "Tell me, Stinking Skunk, why
are you so curious?”
===================================================
A theology student was asked by the professor to name the
epistles.
He hemmed and hawed, and said the epistles were the wives
of the Apostles.
The professor said he was wrong, dead wrong.
The theology student then asked, "Whose wives were they,
anyway?"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
That is all for today (I am Indian, by the way.).
DLReagan+
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